


a bible in my left hand and a pistol in my right

by deluxemycroft



Series: land was left to me [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint swears a lot, Deaf Clint Barton, Depression, Derealization, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, Time Loop, Time Magic, Time Shenanigans, isolation...but make it sexy, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deluxemycroft/pseuds/deluxemycroft
Summary: Is it possible to fall in love with someone inside a time loop?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Loki/Steve Rogers
Series: land was left to me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586281
Comments: 8
Kudos: 111





	a bible in my left hand and a pistol in my right

**Author's Note:**

> my ideal loki is just 'creates a constant nuisance of himself for the attention but isn't _really_ trying to hurt anyone...unless....', which is kind of how he started out in the comics (he tried to turn a whole city into bubblegum or something and thor was like 'oh i gotta put this man in a sack and take him back to asgard, sorry about my horrible brother everyone'). so here's a fun interpretation of that version of loki.
> 
> read the warnings, this fic got a little darker than i'd intended. as with most of my mcu fics, it's clint barton centric.
> 
> not beta'd, just edited by me. - thank you to Dahlia for the correction!

The funny thing is, it takes Clint almost a week to realize he’s stuck in a time loop. Yes, Cap had said the same thing to him six days in a row, and Loki had caused some mischief and tried to take over the world and Thor had easily thwarted him and then the two brothers had argued for four hours, and then they’d all eaten pizza and drank beer and watched movies, but most of that was normal anyway. Sure, it didn’t happen every day, but it was normal enough that Clint didn’t really think about it. He can be kind of a ditz sometimes. He’d been mostly distracted by listening to Barnes and Natasha try and figure out when they should have a knife throwing competition and if he could go watch without making it too obvious he’s gonna jerk off to Barnes later.

It’s only when he asks Barnes the next morning, “Hey, which one of us do you think Loki will try to kidnap this time?” and Barnes gives him a strange look and tells him they haven’t seen Loki in months that Clint realizes something is wrong. He freezes, spits his food out, and Cap comes up behind him, claps him on the shoulder.

“Think we should get some training in later today, Hawk,” Cap tells him, and it’s the exact same thing he’s said to Clint every morning for the past week. God damn it. “It’ll do you some good. Maybe 10?”

“You’re the only man on Earth who thinks 10am is _later_ , Cap,” Clint retorts, but he nods and sends Cap a grin over his shoulder, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do. Steve has taught him a lot about fighting and improving his abilities on the ground and in combat, and Clint always enjoys their lessons. Steve pats him on the back again and nods to Barnes and then leaves, but not before grabbing an everything bagel from the counter and taking it with him. Same damn thing he’s done for the past week, and Steve always gets a different bagel every morning. Says he likes to change it up.

Clint looks down at his coffee and tries to figure out what’s going on. His mind races back, but he’s not even sure when this, whatever the hell it is, even started. Yeah, the last few days have been kind of repetitive, but he has a lot of days like that. 

He glances up to see Barnes frowning at him, but Barnes frowns a lot, so Clint gives him an uneasy smile and pushes to his feet. He doesn’t know where he’s planning on going, but he needs to _move_. He has a vague thought of finding Dr. Strange when alarms begin to blare. He scrambles out the door after Barnes, gets his gear, meets everyone up in Tony’s penthouse, where he’s suiting up. Clint is checking his arrows over when Thor touches down, shouting about Loki. Yep, same shit as always.

Well, time to see if he can change anything. The last few days they’ve hung back while Thor tells them about what Loki is up to—oh, yep, he’s mad at their dad and he’s taking it out on Earth, got it—and Clint decides he’s not gonna listen to it. He nocks an arrow, tests his bow, and walks past Thor and out onto the balcony.

“My brother is—” Thor starts, but Clint waves him off. He gets it. Yeah, he’s crazy, but Loki isn’t _really_ dangerous. He just likes to stir up trouble and make a menace of himself until he gets enough attention and then he flounces off to go jerk off in the woods or whatever.

There’s a huge storm outside and Clint braces himself against the wind, grits his teeth. He steps up to the railing and yells, “Loki! Is this your doing?”

It takes a minute and Clint is shivering and his hands are going numb and then Loki appears in front of him, boots resting on the railing. Clint blinks up at him and grimaces. “Is the storm my doing?” Loki asks, sounding uncertain. Clint is good at throwing jackasses off their game and Loki is so easy.

“I figured it was,” Clint chatters out, rubbing his arms. Loki waves a hand and the wind lessens. “Not the storm. I don’t care about that. Is the spell your doing?”

“Spell?” Loki repeats, and then his eyes widen and he raises a hand, but before anything happens, something hits Clint in the side of the head and a brief shock of pain lances through him and then the world goes dark.

Clint blinks back to himself and he’s sitting in the communal kitchen, Barnes sitting across from him, and Cap walks into the kitchen. Clint looks down and his breakfast is the same: scrambled eggs, toast, beans, coffee. 

“Think we should get some training in later today, Hawk,” Cap says, and claps Clint on the shoulder.

Clint interrupts him before he can go any further. “I’m feelin’ kinda sick, actually,” and he pushes away his food and knocks Steve’s hand off his shoulder and pushes to his feet. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Cap and Barnes both glance at each other when Clint rushes out of the room and Barnes mutters, “Idiot didn’t even drink his coffee.”

“Must really be sick,” Cap replies with a faint frown.

Clint rushes back to his room and slams and locks the door. “JARVIS,” he asks, “what’s the contact information for Dr. Strange?”

“Downloading Sorcerer Supreme Strange’s information to your handheld device now,” JARVIS replies pleasantly, and Clint’s phone trills. He yanks it out of his pocket and takes a deep breath before calling maybe the second most annoying, arrogant ass on the planet after Tony Stark.

“Who is this?” Strange asks after a few rings. “How did you get this number?”

“Uh, this is Clint. Barton. Clint Barton. I’m Hawkeye?”

“How did you get this number?”

“I asked the—JARVIS gave it to me. I think I need your help. I’m caught in some kind of spell.”

Strange makes a faintly annoyed sound. “Is that so?”

“I’ve repeated the last week or so. I just realized—” Alarms begin to go off and Clint winces. “That’s Loki. He’s bringing down a storm and he and Thor are going to fight for awhile and Cap is going to—”

“That’s very nice,” Strange interrupts. “If this is _really_ Hawkeye, then this is a poorly thought out prank. Do not contact me again.” Then he hangs up and Clint sighs, drops onto the couch and puts his head in his hands. 

The alarm continues to blare and JARVIS asks, “Do you intend on responding to the call, Mr. Barton?”

“No,” Clint rasps. “Tell ‘em I’m sick.”

“Very well,” JARVIS replies pleasantly. Then, a moment later, “Captain America still requests your presence posthaste in Sir’s quarters.”

“Tell him to wait until after Thor breaks down Loki’s wards with Mjolnir before throwing his shield,” Clint replies tiredly, “otherwise Loki will make a bunch of replicas and hit Cap with them.” He runs his hands through his hair. Alright, Strange is out, and he doesn’t think he can ask Loki. If this is a time loop, and he’s pretty sure it is, then there’s something he has to change before everything goes back to normal. That’s how it works, right? He just doesn’t know _what_ he has to change.

Clint gets up, gets a cup of coffee and a notebook and a pen, and sits back down on the couch. He tells JARVIS to turn off the alarms and that he isn’t to be bothered for the rest of the day. He writes down everything he can think of that happened each of the previous days:

-Eat breakfast, Cap asks to work out  
-Loki attacks, Thor tells them it’s because he got into an argument with their dad  
-Thor and Loki fight and Thor tells everyone to stay back, but Cap doesn’t listen to that and joins in on the fight, which means all the other Avengers follow  
-Cap throws his shield at Loki, who catches it and then creates a bunch of replicas that hit Cap and he gets thrown off the side of the Tower  
-Thor chases after him and catches him  
-Loki apparently gets mad about that and starts a fight with Iron Man  
-oh my god this is so boring he’s going to die of boredom

A billion things happen each day. How is Clint supposed to know which one somehow sparked a time loop curse? After the fight with Loki, where Loki and Thor had yelled at each other over _nothing_ , Loki had vanished and Thor had gone with him. Then Thor had come back an hour later, after everyone had given Cap their reports and gotten showered and changed, and sheepishly apologized for Loki being Loki, and then he’d ordered them a bunch of pizzas—Clint didn’t even know the guy knew how to use a phone, much less figure out how to order pizza—that Tony has to pay for, and then the lot of them relax in Tony’s living room and watch shitty movies and drink beer and laugh about Loki’s antics. Clint and Barnes had hung out together on the couch while Barnes and Nat had talked about a knife throwing contest and Clint had resolutely ignored the butterflies in his stomach whenever he’d grazed Barnes’s arm or their knees had touched or—

Yeah, he’s not going there. He’s a grown man. He doesn’t get crushes. So he’s not gonna think about that. Barnes has enough shit to deal with without Clint adding his bullshit to the mix. Not like a guy like Barnes would look twice at Clint, anyway.

He shakes his head. Not gonna think about it. They might be friends, but—

 _Not_ thinking about it. Okay. He refocuses and thinks about Loki. It’s gotta have something to do with Loki, right? Maybe he cast some kind of spell on Thor that got messed up. That means Clint has to talk to him and not get knocked out or killed or whatever that was the day before. Or today? Tomorrow? Whatever.

Clint pulls up his phone and after thinking about it, turns it to incognito mode. He doesn’t trust Tony. He Googles _time loop_ and spends the afternoon reading everything he can find on the subject.

Awhile later, right as Clint is getting ready for bed, rubbing at his ears and dropping his hearing aids on the nightstand, the lights flash. He sighs, sticks his hearing aids back in, then remembers he’s supposed to be sick and wraps a blanket around his shoulders. He opens the door and peers blearily out at Barnes.

“Barnes,” Clint says slowly. “You need something?”

Barnes shifts uncomfortably and Clint glances down to see he’s holding a bowl of soup. Oh yeah, he missed dinner. “JARVIS said you were sick,” Barnes mutters. “Always used to make Steve soup when he was sick, figured you could use it to.”

Clint really, really hopes he’s not blushing. God, he’s a moron. He gives out a fake cough and nods, opens the door wider. “Sure, man, you wanna share it with me?”

Barnes glances over him, peers deeper into his rooms. Whatever he sees makes him shake his head. Instead, he just holds out the bowl until Clint takes it and says, “Feel better, Barton,” and flees.

Clint stares after him until Barnes rounds the corner to the elevators and looks down at the soup. Chicken and rice. He looks back at his room and doesn’t see whatever it was that Barnes saw that made him run, so he just kicks the door shut and goes back to sit on the couch. He pulls out his hearing aids and drops them on the coffee table, then curls up on the couch and sips at the soup. It sits heavy in his stomach even though it’s goddamn delicious.

 _Used to make it for Steve,_ Barnes said. Clint isn’t much to look at or very impressive in anything other than being an Avenger. He’s a good hand with a bow and he’s alright at fighting, but he’s nothing like Steve. He’s just...he isn’t called Hawkeye for no reason, but he thinks he’s seeing signs where there aren’t any. He doesn’t know why Barnes brought him soup, but Clint is determined to think nothing of it. He knows it’s dumb.

He shakes his head at himself and finishes the soup, and then goes and crawls into bed. He wasn’t even sick but he does feel better with the soup in his belly. It’s warm and he curls up under the covers, wishes he was warm because Barnes—

Clint opens his eyes and he’s sitting in the kitchen again. God fucking _damn it_. He drops his fork. Across the table, Barnes looks up at him and frowns. Okay, avoiding the problem isn’t working. Clint shoves back from the table and leaves, shoulders past Cap without saying anything. He runs upstairs, skitters to a stop on the balcony outside the penthouse, and looks up at the swirling, slowly darkening clouds.

“Loki!” he yells. “I need to talk to you!”

There’s a small sound from behind him and Clint whirls around to see Loki, horned helm gleaming on his head, cape fluttering out behind him, all boots and polished leather and looking as arrogant and bastardly as ever. Green eyes flick disdainfully over him. “I’m busy,” Loki grouses. “What, Hawkeye?”

“I’m stuck in a time loop,” Clint interrupts before Loki can go off on some monologue. “I need you to help me stop it. I think you cast some spell that locked me in it.”

Loki huffs. “I haven’t been to Midgard in months,” he replies imperiously, lifting his chin. He glances around. “Is this one of those TV shows?”

How the hell does Loki even _know_ about TV? “I’m not punking you,” Clint replies tiredly. “You’ve been here every day for the past week and a half. Or longer, I don’t know. Look, I can tell you exactly what happens later when Thor comes down to fight you.”

Loki regards him suspiciously. Clint gets it. He wouldn’t trust him either.

“I asked Dr. Strange,” Clint says before Loki starts talking. “And he—”

“Oh, what did that second-rate, two-bit, mockery of a sorcerer say?” Loki asks, and he’s actually irritated, like how dare one of his enemies go to an ally before going to Loki. “Don’t tell me, Hawkeye. I will help you.” Loki glances up at the sky and waves his hand, and overhead, the slowly growing storm clouds dissipate. Loki’s helm disappears and his cape flutters behind him as he begins to pace. “What spells did I cast?” Loki questions.

Clint sighs, leans back against the railing and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, I don’t know the names,” he mutters. “But you made a bunch of duplicates of Cap’s shield and hit him with them until he fell off the building. Thor caught him.”

Strangely enough, Loki freezes and his mouth turns down. He’d looked amused at the thought of hitting Cap with his own shield, but clearly doesn’t like Thor and Cap...interacting? Touching? Rescuing each other? Clint wishes he knew. “Is that so?” Loki questions, and his voice his completely blank. Then he shakes his head and resumes pacing. “Continue,” he barks, like Clint was waiting for his permission.

“It was mostly flashy stuff,” Clint sighs out. “Once Thor brought Cap back, you started fighting Iron Man. Then Thor managed to calm you down, but you did that witch cackle you do—”

“Cackle?!” Loki squawks.

“Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. When you cackle because you’ve come up with a really good plan. Then you said, _Clint Barton, I’m gonna fuck up your whole shit_ , and you pointed at me—”

“Hawkeye!” Loki barks. Clint rolls his eyes. “I did no such thing. This is sounding quite like a flight of fancy.” Loki whirls around and glares at the silent, empty windows behind him. “Is this some manner of trap? Attempting to foil my plans before I have even begun? Hawkeye, I must pay retribution to my brother for—”

“Your dad told you that he’s going to send Thor on some diplomatic thing to another planet and not you, I know,” Clint says, shaking his head. Loki’s head rears back and he whirls on Clint. “Trust me, I’ve heard all about it. Honestly, I think I’m on your side. You might be a jackass but you’re a lot more diplomatic than Thor.” Clint shrugs. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you keep attacking Earth whenever something doesn’t go your way.”

Loki glances over his shoulder at the windows and then lifts his chin. “Thor must’ve told you”

“About the diplomatic retreat? No. I haven’t even seen him in, what, a month? You told us the like, nine other times you came to Earth to throw a fit. Maybe stop doing that and your dad will think you’re mature enough to be a prince or whatever.” Clint sighs. “Can you just help me? What spells would you have cast? I’m not going to judge or anything. Just tell me.”

Loki frowns at him and seems to think it over. He opens his mouth, but that moment, the doors behind him open.

“Loki!” Cap calls, and the Avengers flood out behind him. Clint watches in dismay as Loki’s eyes shutter over and a snarl creases his mouth, and then he growls and spins around on his heel. “You don’t want to do this!”

“Oh?” Loki asks, and he begins to lift up and float in the air, helm appearing on his head, cape flowing out behind him. He holds his hands out at his sides and the sky above cracks with thunder and lightning. “Don’t I?”

Steve throws his shield and Loki holds out a hand, catches it without effort. He cackles and shoots up into the sky, and a moment later, Thor slams down, yelling Loki’s name.

Barnes runs over and throws his metal arm over Clint’s shoulders, pulls him inside. “What were you doing?” Barnes yells against the wind as he yanks the door shut.

Clint just shakes his head. He knows that Loki is never gonna listen to him again. For some reason, that was his one chance.

He ducks out from underneath Barnes’s arm and watches as Loki hits Cap with hundreds of his own shield. He rubs at his chin and glances at Barnes, who is watching him instead of going to help his friend. “I’m fine,” Clint says out of the blue, and he winces at the rough sound of his own voice. 

“Loki’s all flash,” Barnes says with a shrug. “If he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. What the _hell_ were you doing, Barton?”

“I just had a question for him,” Clint says, rubbing at the back of his neck. Barnes gives him a strange, searching look. “When they’re done, tell ‘em I had something to do.”

Barnes calls after him but Clint ignores him as he rushes out of the room, pulling out his phone. He doesn’t have Strange’s contact information anymore, of course, so he asks JARVIS for it as he steps into the elevator. His phone trills and Clint looks up as the elevator doors close to meet Barnes’s gaze.

He blinks and he’s back in the kitchen.

“Fuck!” Clint yells, and he picks up the plate and chucks it at the far wall. He breathes heavily and watches as his scrambled eggs and beans and toast all slowly slide down the wall. Barnes flinches and then straightens up automatically, pushing to his feet a moment later. “Fuck.”

Cap runs in. “Clint?” he asks, sounding concerned. His eyes glance over the food and then he frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to fucking train,” Clint snarls at him, and he tears his gaze away from Barnes to stomp out of the room. “I’m going to see Strange, JARVIS. Send me his address.”

His phone trills and Clint doesn’t take the elevator. He runs down the stairs, skidding out into the main lobby and surprising a few agents as he pants for a few moments and then darts across the lobby. He waves down a cab and ignores one of the Stark drivers that offers to drive him.

“Clint!” Steve calls from behind him as Clint slides into the cab, because of course he followed him. “Come back!”

Clint tells the befuddled cab driver the address and then smashes his phone into the pavement before slamming the door behind him. “Hope you got that address,” he pants, and the driver nods, pulling out into traffic. Hopefully Steve will let him run and won’t make a scene.

He doesn’t look back as the cab turns the corner. It doesn’t take long for the cab to pull up outside the Sanctum Sanctorum, and Clint freezes as he realizes he doesn’t have any money. “Can you, like, charge Tony Stark?”

The driver gives him a baffled look and Clint grimaces. Shit. He looks up and the door to the Sanctum opens, revealing Strange’s weird, long face. “Barton?” Clint sees him mouth, and he rolls down the window.

“Hey, Doc!” Clint calls, “You got any cash? I need to pay this guy!”

Strange looks dumbfounded but he pays the driver and then pulls Clint inside. Clint gives the driver a jaunty wave and then Strange kicks the door shut behind him. Clint pulls away from him and whistles as he looks around. “Wow, fancy. You live here?”

“You live in perhaps one of the most expensive buildings in the city, if not the world,” Strange bites at him, voice tight. “Hawkeye, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I need your help.” Clint tries to slide his hands into his pockets but his sweats don’t have pockets. Damn. This whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse. “I think I’m stuck in a time loop.”

Strange sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with one shaking hand. It’s an expression Clint has seen directed at him a lot in his life. “How on earth could you be stuck in a time loop? Do you know the type of magicks required to sustain such a spell?”

“No idea,” Clint replies cheerfully, and almost as if on cue, Loki’s storm rumbles over head. Strange frowns as he looks up, dropping his hand from his face. “But I think it has something to do with that.”

He explains everything. Strange is only slightly easier to deal with than Loki, which isn’t saying much, and he’s almost less helpful. At least Loki had been somewhat willing to help. Strange just seems convinced he’s lying, and Clint can’t convince him otherwise.

“Why would I lie!?” he exclaims again. “I don’t even like you, Strange. You don’t like me, either. I don’t want to be here! I just want to stop waking up in the kitchen and eating the same food. It’s been almost two weeks and I want to eat _anything_ other than beans and eggs and toast. I’m almost even getting tired of coffee!”

Strange rolls his eyes. They’ve been arguing all day, and they moved upstairs to a small den. Strange had made sure to keep Clint far away from all of his weird artifacts, which means Clint _really_ wants to get his hands on some of them. “Alright,” Strange finally says, and he does something weird with his hand that apparently means for his weird red Cloak to go off and get a few books. The Cloak sets them on the table between them and Strange opens the first of them as he pets the Cloak, which settles back around Strange’s shoulders.

Clint is judging, even though he really shouldn’t. He’s kind of overly attached to his bows and he’s been known to sleep with a quiver or two. “What’s that?” Clint asks, motioning to the book Strange is reading.

Strange doesn’t look at him. “The Cloak of Levitation,” he mutters, stroking some of the Cloak’s fine red fabric. Clint hides his grimace.

“Yeah, I got that by the way you float when you wear it. I meant the book.”

“Ah,” Strange says, clearing his throat. “It is the _Book of Manat_ , a Semitic goddess of time. We study her teachings at the Kamar-Taj.”

“Great,” Clint agrees, watching impatiently as Stephen quickly flicks through the book. “What’s it say?”

“Our understanding of time comes from the Eye of Agamotto,” Strange tells him, a bit absent-mindedly. “But there are other spells that can also control and even stop the flow of time. Loki is a being capable of casting such spells, which I am sure you know.” He closes the book, looks up at Clint. “The purpose of spells such as this is to change something. You are human without any prior training in sorcery or mystic arts. It is not something you would be capable of.”

“I’m aware, Doc. What are you trying to say?”

“Someone is in this spell with you,” Strange tells him, and Clint blinks, and wakes back up in the kitchen.

He groans and drops his head into his plate, pushes his face into the beans.

“Barton?” Barnes asks from across the table, completely scandalized. He reaches across the table and touches Clint’s arm, then pushes at the top of his head. Clint just groans. “You sick, man?”

“Why?” Clint asks. “Gonna make me some soup? Chicken and rice, right?”

“How do you know about that?” Cap asks from the doorway, and Clint looks up to see Barnes frowning at him, Cap crossing his arms over his chest. Bean juice runs down Clint’s face. Great, just great. Good going, Barton.

“Read it somewhere,” Clint shrugs.

Cap’s eyes narrow. “No you didn’t,” he retorts a moment later, way too astute for his own good. Bastard. Big red, white, and blue bastard. “Clint,” he says, “what’s going on?”

Clint shrugs and blinks and the scene is reset.

He just groans and eats his food and ignores the way Barnes is watching him from across the table. “You alright?” Barnes asks as Steve comes in, asking if Clint wants to train with him. Clint sighs and nods and watches as Steve grabs an everything bagel on the way out.

There’s no rhyme or reason to the time loops, Clint learns. Sometimes he’ll be on the toilet or in the shower and he’ll blink and he’s back in the kitchen. Or he’ll be trying to talk to Loki or asking Thor how he knew how to order a pizza or trying to balance an arrow on his nose and he’ll blink and be back in the kitchen. He tries to get Loki’s help, tries to get more help from Strange, even asks Tony, and they either don’t believe him or tell him what he already knows.

Clint tries _everything_. He’s thrown himself off the Tower and he returns to the kitchen before he ever hits the ground. He even takes to Twitter and sends out a bunch of tweets about being stuck in a time loop, which goes viral and he’s even mentioned on the news later that night about how Hawkeye has clearly suffered some sort of mental break, and then when he wakes up in the kitchen again, there’s nothing.

He does all the crazy shit he can think of, even pulls his dick out in the middle of the pizza night and runs around the living room. Not even Natasha would be able to look him in the eye the next morning if she saw him do that. She’s seen his dick before but not like that. Nothing, nada, zilch. He starts a pizza fight and makes an offhand comment about it while they’re all watching Thor and Loki argue, but nobody even acts like they know what he’s talking about. He throws fits and throws a bunch of stuff off Tony’s balcony and runs up and down the stairs until he’s panting and gagging. He tries to stay up all night and even catches the first flights available and no matter where he ends up, no matter where he falls asleep, or even _if_ he falls asleep, he always comes back to himself in that goddamn fucking kitchen.

He drinks enough one night to rival Thor and even tries Asgardian booze. He spends an entire day with the Scarlet Witch, trying to get her to use her magic on him to see if there’s a spell on him. She eventually complies and then when there’s nothing, Clint sincerely thinks about slitting his wrists.

He even tells Natasha how he feels about Barnes. He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know what to do about it, but he tells her. He had thought that maybe if he just admitted to his feelings, said them out loud, then he’d wake up in bed or on the floor or _anywhere_ but that fucking kitchen. It doesn’t work. Nothing works. 

Clint tries to keep track of how many days it’s been but gives up after a few weeks. He thinks that maybe if he stops fighting it, that’ll fix it. So he fights Loki, watches every move he makes, joins in on the pizza night, ribs Thor like he’s supposed to, and awkwardly sits with Barnes and doesn’t _do_ anything.

Then, one day, as they’re watching the same horrible comedy for the thousandth time, Clint turns and looks at Barnes. They’re sharing the same loveseat they’ve sat in together for months. This is where they always sit, Clint on the right cushion and Barnes on the left. Barnes glances at him, gives him a small smile, and then chuckles at something in the movie, goes back to talking with Nat about the knife throwing contest.

Clint’s going to wake up tomorrow in the kitchen anyway, so he reaches out, and he puts his hand on Barnes’s thigh. Blue eyes widen and then look at him, and Barnes glances between Clint’s hand and his face. Clint tries to look as reassuring as possible, and Barnes softens, then sets his hand on top of Clint’s. A moment later and Clint turns his hand over and they intertwine their fingers.

Clint smiles to himself, and when he looks back at the TV, he blinks and he’s back in the kitchen.

He can’t help it; he lets out a sob and buries his head in his hands. “Clint?” Barnes asks from across the table, sounding concerned, and there’s a scuffle as Barnes moves around the table to flutter his hands uncomfortably around Clint’s shaking shoulders. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Clint just shakes his head, drops his fists to the table and grits his teeth. It’s been _months_. He’s done everything he can to try and fix it, try and figure out why the fuck he’s in this shitty spell, and he’s nowhere closer to figuring out why or _who_ than he was when he started. He gives out a wet chuckle and shakes his head again. Stupid, stupid Barton. Someone else probably would’ve figured it out. Someone else probably would’ve known they were in a time loop from the beginning. Someone else wouldn’t have been so _dumb_ and stupid and he’s never been good enough and—

Great, now he’s crying again. Barnes’s flesh hand settles on his shoulder as Barnes takes the seat next to him. Clint doesn’t stop himself from turning and pushing his face into Barnes’s chest and clutching his shirt in between his fingers and just breathing him in. Barnes makes a surprised sound and then slowly, both of his arms come around Clint’s shoulders.

“Bucky?” Cap says from the doorway, but Barnes shakes his head.

“Clint?” Barnes asks softly as Clint takes in a shuddering, heaving breath. “What is it? What’s wrong? I can fix it if you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Clint gasps out, slowly regaining himself. “I’ve tried to fix it so many times but it’s just _fucked._ ”

“What is it?” Barnes repeats, and he slowly brings up a hand to cup the back of Clint’s head. Clint straightens up but stays close, doesn’t drop his hands from Bucky’s chest, reveling in the feeling of Bucky’s strength underneath him. 

“Clint, what’s wrong?” Cap asks from behind him, and Clint just shakes his head. Bucky motions with his chin for Cap to leave and Steve sighs at the both of them and swipes a bagel as he leaves.

“I’m stuck,” Clint finally says, reluctantly taking a hand from Bucky’s shirt to rub it over his face. He lets out a long, trembling sigh and slowly meets Bucky’s gaze. “I’m in this spell or something. I’ve told you about it before but nobody ever remembers.”

“Like a time spell?” Bucky asks, and Clint nods. He doesn’t know why he’s shocked that Bucky seems to be so calm about this; the guy probably can’t be shocked anymore, given everything he’s gone through.

“A time loop, I think,” Clint confirms tiredly. He leans forward and his eyes shutter shut as his forehead touches Bucky’s. Bucky takes in a sharp breath and then leans into Clint, hands sliding down to cup Clint’s hips. “I’m tired,” Clint whispers. “Bucky, I’m tired.”

“Alright,” Bucky says, and pulls back, takes Clint’s hands in his. “Let’s go lay down, then.”

Clint follows him and doesn’t even notice the missing plain bagel as he can’t seem to look away from the back of Bucky’s head. Bucky leads them down the hall to the elevator and his shoulders tighten as the alarms begin to blare.

“It’s just Loki,” Clint sighs. “We can ignore it. He’s not gonna do anything.”

Bucky looks him over and something tightens in his jaw as they get in the elevator and Bucky hits the button for his floor. “It’s just Loki,” Bucky repeats, almost amused. “Guy’s all flash, anyway. If he wanted to kill us, he would’ve done it a long time ago.”

Clint snorts. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

They leave the elevator and Clint lets Bucky tug him down to his rooms, and he follows Bucky back through his messy living room and into his even messier bedroom. Clint smiles at him. “I always thought you’d be a neat freak,” he admits, and lets Bucky push him into bed. It feels like a dream. Bucky kicks off his boots and slides into bed next to Clint. The two of them turn on their sides and look at each other as Clint pulls out his hearing aids and drops them on the nightstand.

Bucky smiles at him, just a bit, and reaches his metal arm across the bed. Clint takes it without hesitation, and looks at Bucky for as long as he can without blinking. When he finally does, he’s back in the kitchen.

He rests his head in his hands and sags against the table. Clint eats a few bites and drinks some coffee and tells Cap when he comes in that he’ll train with him. He winks at Barnes right before the alarms go off and he suits up and does what he’s supposed to in the fight against Loki. When he joins everyone in Tony’s living room, he kicks up his feet and slings an arm across Bucky’s shoulders and Bucky gives him a surprised look and then leans their heads together.

Clint spends the next few weeks just...going with the flow. He doesn’t fight it. He uses his training to look for anything different, any slight variation, any slight change, and there’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. He even counts the number of beans on his plate every morning, drinks his coffee in the same number of sips, eats his toast and eggs in the same number of bites, and flirts with Barnes with varying degrees of intensity and heat. To his surprise, no matter how he comes on, no matter what he implies, Bucky always agrees and is always into it.

The first time Bucky fucks him, Clint doesn’t even care where he wakes up the next morning. He could die and this would be enough. He finally _gets_ it, finally finds where he’s meant to be, and it’s with Bucky Barnes. He doesn’t even mind when he blinks to awareness in the kitchen the next morning.

The first time Clint fucks Bucky, fireworks explode behind his eyes and in his heart. When he opens his eyes and sees Bucky across the table from him, he grins at him, and Bucky smiles back.

Clint grows complacent, starts mentioning things Bucky did before, things that other Bucky’s told him that the Bucky now wouldn’t know he knows, and he ends up having to pull himself back. He grows too close, and that’s almost worse than not being with Bucky at all. Bucky doesn’t know the difference, of course, but Clint knows. He knows what it’s like to feel Bucky’s hand in his, knows what it’s like to pick up his hand in the middle of the loveseat and stroke his knuckles, knows what his dick looks and feels like and knows the way he smiles, soft and genuine and beautiful after sex. 

He tries to research more about time spells, but even when he holes up for a day and Googles and researches and tries to find fucking anything, it’s all gone the next day. He can’t take anything from day to day. He’s got a good memory but not that good. 

Clint takes out his hearing aids so he can’t hear the alarms and drops onto his couch, kicks his feet up onto the arm and stares up at the ceiling. He can nap sometimes, and he manages to do it now, and jerks awake awhile later when the couch dips next to his head. He looks up to see Bucky sitting next to him, still dressed in combat gear, and Clint grins up at him, can’t help it.

Bucky just smiles at him. He doesn’t try to say anything, not like Clint could hear it anyway. Clint reaches up and Bucky meets him in the middle, takes his hand. Bucky sighs, leans back against the couch, closes his eyes. Clint watches him for a moment, upside down, struck for a moment that someone like Bucky Barnes trusts him this much.

Then he closes his eyes as well, and leans his head against Bucky’s thigh, and dozes. It isn’t until he falls into a deeper sleep that he manages to jerk awake to find himself in the kitchen again. He just sighs and avoids Bucky’s eyes. Over the next few days, he pulls himself back from Bucky a bit, just as a test. Bucky doesn’t seem bothered at all, and Clint tests him a few times, tries to see if he’s the other part of the loop, but Bucky is just honest and genuine and beautiful and handsome and good God, Clint might really be in love with him.

He tries to talk to Loki a few more times and gets the god’s attention once, even manages to get him to actually listen to Clint’s problem, but Cap interrupts them. He goes back to Strange, who either thinks he’s lying or can’t help. Wanda can’t help either. Clint tries to figure out why everyone assumes he’s a liar and decides he doesn’t really want to know. He’s stuck and it gets worse every day.

He tries to end it. He cuts his wrists in the bath, watches in a haze as his blood begins to slowly fill up the tub, and blinks back to himself in the kitchen, wrists as good as new. He tries to throw himself off the Tower again and wakes up in the kitchen right before impact. He even tries to poison himself and it never takes more than making him pass out or vomit or shit his pants. No matter what he does, no matter how he tries to end it, he always wakes up back in the kitchen.

Not being able to control his life is almost worse than the time loop. Nothing ever changes. He shaves his head and it’s grown back the next morning. He gets a tattoo and his skin is clear. He cuts off one of his toes and it’s back again. He gets in the middle of the fight between Thor and Loki and Thor hits him with a glancing blow with Mjolnir and Clint doesn’t think anyone could survive that and he still wakes up in the kitchen.

He even tries to kill himself in front of all his teammates and when he wakes up, he searches each of their gazes and makes suicidal jokes and none of them glance down at his bare wrists. Bucky is the most concerned and Nat takes him aside, talks to him, and Clint hugs her close, feeling like he’s swimming in the ocean and it's only time before he’s going to drown.

He wakes up in the kitchen again. 

He wakes up in the kitchen again.

He wakes up in the kitchen again.

He wakes up in the kitchen again.

He wakes up in the kitchen again.

He watches as Thor and Loki fight, he watches as Cap throws his shield, watches as Loki catches it, watches as Thor catches Cap as he falls off the building, watching as Loki waits until Cap and Thor are back, waits until they’re safe, until he starts up a fight—

Wait.

Clint stands back and watches Loki fight. He spends an entire week standing off to the side, watching Loki. He’s all flash and fanfare and never actually tries to hurt anyone. When he catches Cap’s shield and sends the duplicates back, it’s clearly not to harm him. It’s a lucky shot that catches Cap off balance that sends him tumbling off the side of the Tower, and Clint watches as Loki’s eyes go wide and then narrow as Thor yells, “Steven!” and flies after him.

The rest of the fight is Loki playing with them, once Steve is safe. He essentially keeps them busy while he tosses Cap’s shield around and throws spells and stirs up a storm. Clint learns the storm is caused by magic and that’s why Thor can’t control it. Clint learns that Loki is not only frustrated that Odin didn’t send him on the diplomatic mission but that Thor told Odin not to send him.

Clint goes back through their video files of Loki and finds when Loki started going easy on them.

He’s sitting in the kitchen one morning, squishing his beans under his fork, when Cap comes in. Clint says he hurt his back and doesn’t want to train, and he watches as Cap picks up a bagel as he leaves. He doesn’t think anything about it until the alarm goes off and he and Bucky are rushing out of the room and his gaze catches on the everything bagels. There’s three of them and there’s three plain bagels and there’s two asiago cheese bagels.

Huh.

Bucky turns left down the hall and Clint usually follows him, but he looks right and sees Cap rushing that way. Clint tells Bucky he’ll be right there and he rushes after Cap. He’s seen Cap take an everything bagel every day for probably over a year now, not that he really has any concept of time passing. This is the first time something has changed that Clint hasn’t directly influenced.

“Hey, Steve,” Clint calls, and when Cap pauses and turns to look at him, Clint grins at him. He’s never followed Steve before. He’s followed everyone else, but this is _Captain America_ , and he thinks that’s exactly what Loki was counting on. “You know, I never suspected you. It’s been, what, a year? Two years?”

Steve frowns at him. “Hawk, what are you talking about?”

“I’m going to keep trying to kill myself,” Clint finally says, “or you’re going to let me out of this spell. You’re either going to have to keep resurrecting me or you’re going to let me out.”

For a moment, nothing happens. Then, Steve’s face melts away, revealing Loki, who scowls at him. Clint staggers back, slumps against the wall. “Barton,” Loki mutters angrily, shaking his head, and he glares down at the bagel in his hand and then throws it down the hall. “I hate bagels.”

“So do I,” Clint chuckles, then he freezes. “Loki, what the _fuck?_ ”

“You weren’t meant to get caught in it,” Loki tells him, looking annoyed at Clint’s entire presence. Clint feels the same fuckin’ way.

“Caught in what?”

Loki shifts uncomfortably and clears his throat and instead of saying anything, turns on his heel and stalks down the hall. Clint sighs at his dramatics and follows him. They go down to Steve’s rooms, just down the hall, and Loki pushes the door open. Even more surprising, Steve Rogers is sitting on the couch, shirtless, drinking coffee.

“Babe?” Steve calls, not looking up from the newspaper he’s reading. “You got my bagel?”

“Cap?” Clint calls. “Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”

What the fuck?

Steve stands up and Loki joins him, the two of them standing shoulder to shoulder against Clint, who feels like he’s either going to break down crying or fucking kill one of them. “Steve,” Clint says slowly. “You were here the whole time? You know what he fucking did? Steve, I...Steve what the _fuck?_ ” He staggers to the couch, slaps Steve’s hands away when he tries to help him, and heavily sits down. “What the fuck?” Clint repeats dazedly. He doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t even know if there is anything else.

Loki and Steve both pull up chairs and sit next to each other. Steve puts a hand on Loki’s knee. Clint can’t stop looking at it, can’t stop looking at the way they’re so comfortable around each other, can’t stop looking at how this isn’t a new development. This is years together, years of living in each other’s space, years of cohabitation.

Clint wants to fucking kill both of them.

“You were right when you thought I cast a spell,” Loki begins. “The storm was a component of it. It was meant to bring together those who are meant to be, but your own...affection for the Soldier was strong enough that the spell caught you as well. Instead of giving you a private space with your...intended, it caught you in a net that caused the day to be repeated. I have worked tirelessly to fix it.”

Clint just shakes his head. He doesn’t know what else to do. “I tried to kill myself,” he breathes out. “I tried to kill myself dozens of times. You knew?” he asks Steve, who grimaces. “Cap, you _knew?_ ”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Steve sighs, “or it’d mess up the spell.”

“You couldn’t tell me I was someday going to get out of a fucking _never ending_ time loop?” Clint shrieks. Out in the hall, the alarms begin to blare as fake Loki begins his attack. Real Loki waves a hand and the door shuts, dampening the sound. “You couldn’t tell me to have hope? You couldn’t tell me because it would mess up your spell when I wanted to die? Since when are you more important than anyone else, Cap? How could you sit here and eat bagels and drink coffee while I—”

“While you have sex with my best friend?” Steve interrupts, and Clint snarls at him, leaps across the table, intent on choking the fucking life out of Steve goddamn Rogers, but Loki stops him.

Clint shoves Loki away and paces. “Steve,” Clint starts, then shakes his head. “How could you do this?”

He looks back to see Loki and Steve exchange uncomfortable glances and Clint glares at them. “Hawk,” Steve starts, “I’m sorry. I was out of line. The way the spell was explained to me is that we could only interact with each other.”

Clint holds up a hand and looks at Loki. “I need a drink. Then I need you to start the fuck over.”

Loki gets him a drink and Clint sits back down. They explain everything to him. Loki somehow found out that he and Steve were ‘intended’ for each other, which Clint takes to mean as some sort of weird Asgardian soulmates, and Loki had known for awhile but hadn’t done anything about it. Loki admits that all of his posturing and fancy spells and coming to Earth to fight the Avengers was done mostly as a way to court Steve, which makes Clint gag. So Loki cast a spell that would bring them together for a year, but right as he cast it, Thor brought down a big lightning strike, because of course he did. For some reason, maybe because Clint was just the closest, maybe because of his _affection_ for Bucky, the spell sucked him in as well.

“Is that why Bucky is...oh, God.” Clint gags again and shakes his head. “Can he even consent in this spell? Did this spell make him have sex with me?”

“No, of course not,” Loki interjects hurriedly. “Barnes isn’t even part of it. The man you have had relations with is not truly him, merely a copy. All the spell does is bring two compatible people together in isolation for a year.”

“So it’s been a year?” Clint motions to them, to the way Steve picks up his coffee and takes a sip and then passes it over to Loki, who takes a sip as well, and then Steve takes the cup and puts it back on the table. They look like they’ve been together an entire lifetime, not a year.

“For us,” Steve says, “it’s been nearly twenty. For you, almost two.”

Then that gets into time shenanigans and time loops and the way time works in spells and time dilation and Clint wants to kill himself just to get out of the conversation. His head hurts. “Shut up,” he finally tells them, tired of it. “I don’t want to hear anymore. How do you end it? How do I get out? You two can stay locked up in here forever, I don’t care. I just want out.”

Loki clears his throat. “I am...looking into it,” he finally says.

“Look harder,” Clint tells him. “I’m not doing this any longer.”

Loki and Steve glance at each other and then Loki nods. “If you are amenable, I can put you to sleep until I manage to figure out the spell.”

There really isn’t any other choice, is there? “How much time has passed in the real world? What happened to me?”

“The three of us have simply disappeared, or perhaps you merely fell unconscious,” Loki informs him. “My estimation is that no more than two weeks, or perhaps two months, have passed, but no more than that.”

Clint nods, rubs his chin. He looks at Steve, who tries to look sheepish, but he’s been around Loki too much, and he can’t really pull it off. “So, was that really Steve? Bucky? Stark? Any of them?”

“I occasionally took on Steve’s form,” Loki tells him, “usually out of boredom. You merely got lucky today. Everyone else is a perfect representation and—”

“I don’t care,” Clint says suddenly. He can’t listen to this. He just wants this to be over. God, he needs a therapist or five. “Just knock me out.” He looks pointedly at Cap. “Fix this.”

Loki waves a hand and the last thing Clint knows is the very strong thought that he better not wake up in that fucking kitchen again.

* * *

Clint wakes up but doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t even care if he’s really out of the spell, he’ll literally throw himself off the Tower again if—

A cool metal hand rests on his arm and Clint’s eyes fly open. He’s not in the kitchen. Tears well up in his eyes and he squeezes his eyes shut a few times, letting out a wet sob when he never goes back to the kitchen, and then he looks to see Bucky sitting next to his bed, metal hand on Clint’s arm.

Bucky smiles at him. He says something but Clint can’t hear anything, but Clint doesn’t care, he’s just—he’s awake, he’s in love, and he’s not in that goddamn kitchen anymore, and nothing else matters. Bucky’s mouth is moving and Clint wants to kiss him. 

Bucky stops and his eyes move to the other side of the room and Clint follows his gaze, seeing a nurse come in. The nurse hands him his hearing aids, helps him put them in, and raises the back of his bed up, gives him some water, checks his vitals, tells him he was in a coma and runs a few tests, and then leaves.

He’s tired. He doesn’t feel like he’s been in a coma, he feels like he’s been dragged through hell and back and he just wants to curl up with Bucky for a year and not get out of bed. But this isn’t the Bucky that Clint slept with, this isn’t the Bucky that Clint kissed over and over again, this isn’t the Bucky that Clint saw whenever he woke up in that hateful kitchen and this isn’t the Bucky that never turned Clint down and always took his hand and this isn’t the Bucky that—

“Clint,” Bucky says, voice soft. Clint blinks away his tears and turns to look at him. “It’s been three months,” Bucky tells him, metal fingers brushing softly over Clint’s arm. “I missed you.”

“I’m sorry,” Clint says, and he wants to say so much more than that, wants to say that—

The door opens and Steve walks in.

Clint yanks the needles out of his hands and rips shit out of the wall and pushes to his feet and takes one stumbling step and then punches Steve for all he’s worth. It’s not much, but he gets the message across. Steve catches him and Clint spits at him, tries to bite him, snarls at him like a rabid dog, and then Bucky’s hands are on him, and Clint slumps, glaring daggers at Steve.

“Hawk,” Steve starts, watching as Bucky helps Clint to his feet, props him up on the bed. “I just wanted to give you my apologies.” He brushes his hand through his hair and a wedding ring catches the light. Clint wants to twist his finger off and choke him with it.

“Go fuck yourself,” Clint spits. “Loki I get, but you? Steve, _you?_ Of all people? Steve, come on. How could you do this to me?”

“I love him,” Steve replies simply, and when Clint looks at him, he sees that it’s true. He just...he doesn’t understand. Steve let him live for two years in a time loop while knowing how much Clint was suffering and didn’t do anything. Clint doesn’t even recognize him. “Clint, I...it wasn’t personal.”

“How can you go back to being Captain America?” Clint grits out, trying not to cry again. “How can you go back to saving people when you let me suffer?”

Behind him, Bucky makes a confused noise. Clint is surprised he hasn’t said anything before this, hopes he’ll continue to stay quiet.

Steve sighs, shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he just says again. “He didn’t tell me, you know, not until it’d been over a year for you. Nothing I can do or say will make it right.”

“You’re goddamn fucking right,” Clint mutters, and climbs back into bed. He doesn’t have the right but he holds onto one of Bucky’s hands for strength. Bucky looks between them, still confused, but doesn’t say anything. “Steve, just tell me why.”

“You know why,” Steve says, calmly and simply, and when Clint looks back at him, Steve is looking at the desperate way Clint is holding Bucky’s hand. “If you were in the same place, if you were given unlimited time with him, how could you say no?”

He doesn’t know what to say. “But I was there,” Clint finally says, and it sounds like a whine and he doesn’t care. He wants to go to sleep and he also never wants to wake up because he might wake up in that goddamn kitchen again. “I was there every day. And you’re _Cap_. How could you do that to me? How could you say yes?”

Steve sighs. “I made a choice. I don’t know if it was the right one, but I’ll take responsibility for it.”

“Guys?” Bucky finally asks. “What the hell are you two talking about?”

Clint glares at Steve. “You tell him,” Clint mutters, and he yanks his hand out of Bucky’s and curls up in bed, kicks the IVs away and glares at the covered window. The door opens and just by the way Bucky shifts his weight, Clint knows it’s Loki. Magic settles over the room and Clint snorts. His ears hurt. Loki pulls up chairs for both him and Steve, and the two of them sit, and Clint watches as Bucky realizes they’re strangely comfortable around each other, the way they lean into each other and Steve briefly squeezes Loki’s knee and Clint wants to strangle the both of them.

Loki explains all of it. He stays calm and rational and doesn’t try to paint himself in a better light. He tells Bucky about time dilation, about how Clint was accidentally pulled into it, about how they didn’t even know Clint was in it until he threw himself off the Tower the first time and Loki had to piece his body back together before the spell reset. Clint gets a perverse sense of satisfaction that Loki had to personally heal and fix him each time he fucked himself up. Serves the bastard right. 

In the middle of it all, Bucky moves over to the other side of the bed to his original seat and rests his metal hand on the bed, fingers just brushing up against Clint’s hip.

When Loki finishes, Bucky sighs. “Alright,” he says, and he sounds as tired as Clint feels. “Either that’s the biggest load of horse shit someone’s ever tried to feed me or you’re telling the truth.”

“When you thought I was sick, you made me chicken and rice soup,” Clint tells him softly. “You said you used to make it for Steve. You kept trying to fix everything. Kinda drove me nuts.” He smiles, ducks his chin. Bucky blinks at him. “I’m sorry,” Clint says suddenly. “I kind of...attached myself to you while I was under. I don’t expect anything of you, I promise. I don’t—”

Bucky leans forward and kisses him.

Clint whimpers and his eyes fall shut, and when Bucky pulls back, Clint refuses to open them.

“I spent every night here for three months,” Bucky tells him, and he takes Clint’s hand. “I sat right here. I know we were kind of dancin’ around something, Clint, before all this, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Clint nods. He wants to open his eyes but he’s going to shoot himself in the head if he wakes back up in that kitchen.

He can hear someone moving and then long, cool fingers rest on his arm. Clint flinches and shakes his head slightly.

“I am sorry,” Loki says. “It is because of our own selfishness that you suffered, and nothing will repay that. I believe the betrayal from Captain Rogers is worse than the actual spell.”

“Who replaced you with a real person?” Clint snorts. “You almost sound like you give a shit about anyone other than yourself.”

“Steve cares about you,” Loki replies simply. “I am not particularly opinionated towards you one way or the other, but as Steve is important to me, so are his friends. Especially as you have suffered so unduly.”

“Would you do it again?” Clint finally asks. “If you knew what you were going to do to me, would you do it again?”

“For Steve? In a heartbeat.”

Clint nods. “How do I know this is real?”

Loki makes a curious sound at that. “I suppose there is only one way to know.”

Clint takes a deep breath and opens his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! please leave kudos and reviews
> 
> follow me:  
> tumblr: @deluxemycroft  
> twitter: @whenhedied


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